Resolved Cell reception improvement ? 13 mini vs SE 1st Gen.

[Alpha Centauri]

Hi all,

probably one of the most subjective questions of the day.

For obvious reasons I'm at this stage considering to upgrade from the 6yr old SE to the (now) 1 yr old mini. Notwithstanding one of the motivators being the mini's end of life.

Being such a specific question and so many variables involved, new towers built since, new service provider, etc this may not receive many responses. I'm aware of that. I'm finding that the SE's reception has degraded with LTE/ 4G but also WiFi calling. Now, the latter could be attributed to ongoing problems with my mesh routers. By degradation during the call I mean that after about 10 minutes one can hardly hear the person being called and it eventually just drops the call. On LTE, inside, the reception is quite average due to the building position and thick walls all around. Outside the quality of the call does last longer but again, worsens over time.

So for me the question is whether people switching from those two phones have immediately noticed improved signal strength?

Cheers

 

[Andeddu]

I haven’t noticed any real difference with the SE1 and 12 Mini. I believe the 12 and 13 Mini are the same when picking up WiFi and 4G with an improvement picking up 5G using the 13 Mini. Both the SE and 12 Mini are great though I had issues with the 12 Mini to begin with due to limited 5G coverage in my area. When I switched to 4G only everything ran perfectly. I have no reception issues with my SE and have not noticed degradation with it in 2022 having used both phones extensively.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

@Andeddu thank for your feedback.

So appears my reception strength will remain as is with the mini. I've signed up for non-5G plan as the infrastructure is poor here anyway. I'll only gain a small download speed increase but certainly not to the maximum LTE possible. Overall am also changing service providers, new sim card but they run on the same network as the previous provider.

Everyone in the EU is desperately trying to reduce monthly costs in any form possible due to electricity and natural gas prices having now doubled just before winter, high inflation on everything else. Historically all is likely to remain expensive whatever happens in the future.

Off course they they are quite different devices so how are you finding the experience from the old SE to the mini on a daily basis?

 

[Andeddu]

@Andeddu thank for your feedback.

So appears my reception strength will remain as is with the mini. I've signed up for non-5G plan as the infrastructure is poor here anyway. I'll only gain a small download speed increase but certainly not to the maximum LTE possible. Overall am also changing service providers, new sim card but they run on the same network as the previous provider.

Everyone in the EU is desperately trying to reduce monthly costs in any form possible due to electricity and natural gas prices having now doubled just before winter, high inflation on everything else. Historically all is likely to remain expensive whatever happens in the future.

Off course they they are quite different devices so how are you finding the experience from the old SE to the mini on a daily basis?

Yep. I am feeling here in the UK also. I have sold a lot of technology I don’t use such as my PS5 and Steam Deck in anticipation of much higher energy bills.

The Mini is larger than the SE so it is not as comfortable a phone to use, in my opinion. The benefits are obviously the speed which you will notice immediately as the A15 chip is still cutting edge. The OLED panel is far superior also along with surround sound speakers and a far better battery life and camera. The Mini is obviously far better in every conceivable way to the SE minus form factor.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

OK, I've done it! 13 Mini successfully tested last 2 weeks and..it's a keeper.

So whilst the signal strength hasn't changed (diff company now, same LTE/ 4G network), the WiFi calling is just a joy. Anecdotally the sound quality was so clear and loud, I thought the loudspeaker must be on, when it actually wasn't. I did receive a new sim card but decided to change to an esim to rule out any future hardware degradation on that front.

Seeing as this doubles as a land line I'm actually liking phoning people again without calls scrambling and constantly dropping out.

Wonderful